Building the Business Case for Customer Effort1

7/24/2019 Building the Business Case for Customer Effort1

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2015 CEB. All rights reserved. CCCSYN cebglobal.com

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1

Metrics are not in short supply in service organizations, but which metric is

the most powerful for measuring the customer service experience and drivingsystematic changes? This white paper will provide data and support that

highlights customer effort as the key metric behind becoming a world-class

service organization.

Introduction

Across the CEB Customer Contact Leadership Council and Effortless Experience

Dashboard programs, we work with service organizations to make the business case for

measuring customer effort. We know your colleagues within the service organization and

beyond are curious and want answerswhy should we care about customer effort?

Most companies are metrics driven, so to optimize to a new idea such as effort or to make

changes to the customer service experience, organizations typically want to measure

effort within that service experience and quantify changes to demonstrate the new idea's

ROI. Developing a low-effort service experience means developing a system where

measurement is a critical first step, but organizations should take this a step further and

use the measurement to drive service improvements. This white paper provides guidance

on building the case internally for measuring customer efforta critical step on the path to

becoming a low-effort organization.

Why Customer Effort? Three Key Advantages

1. Predictive Validity

Customer effort in the service experience has a proven relationship to higher-level

organizational goals that you and your colleagues care about. Reducing customer effort: Mitigates disloyalty, and

Reduces the cost of resolving service requests.

2. Actionability

We have studied customer effort for nearly a decade to understand exactly what drives it,

and so we understand how to positively impact the metric and service experience.

You can reduce customers' exertion of effort by managing the discrete things they

must do to resolve their service requests.

For even more impact, you can leverage your contact center reps to engineer low-

effort experiences by influencing perceptions, or how customers feel about service

interactions.

3. Relatability

Beginning to measure customer effort in the service organization may require buy-infrom other functionsand once youve measured effort, youll almost undoubtedly need

to work across the organization to make upstream, low-effort changes. Arm yourself on

how effortless and easy experiences translate across internal functions.

Progressive sales organizations focus on making the sales process effortless.

Progressive marketing organizations drive brand loyalty by making purchase

decisions easy and simple.

Building the Business Casefor Customer Effort

White Paper

CEB Customer Contact

Leadership Counci

Effortless Experience

Dashboard

Why should we care about

customer effort?
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2015 CEB. All rights reserved. CCCSYN cebglobal.com2

This study may not be reproduced or redistributed without the expressed permission of CEBBUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR CUSTOMER EFFORT

Why Measure Anything?

Theres a saying in business that what gets measured gets improved because

measurement holds people and groups accountable and gives organizations something to

optimize to. Its hard to imagine that a service organization would encourage development

of new skills, create new service channels, or hire differently without a sense of whether

those changes matter and are working. But how do service organizations know what to

measure? And once they decide what to measure, how do they impact that metric and get

others on board? Weve found that a concept worth optimizing to must be valid, actionable,

and relatable. Customer effort is just thata concept that accounts for customer perceptionof ease as well as efficiency in the service interaction.

Why Effort? Predictive Validity

In the service organization, few (if any) metrics are measured because they themselves

are goals. Each metric is measured because it correlates with a higher-level business goal,

such as customer loyalty, cost savings, or revenue growth. Some metrics may also correlate

with an intermediate goal known to impact business outcomes. For example, customer

satisfaction (CSAT) is often measured in the service experience because of the suggested

relationship to future customer loyalty, and average handle time (AHT) is captured based

on its tie to cost-reduction projects. Well refer to any metric that correlates to another goalas having predictive validity. Our research has demonstrated that effort is the best service

metric to consider in this sense, based on the strength of relationship with customer loyalty

and cost savings accrued.

Customer Effort and Loyalty

When tested in more than 50 of the largest customer service organizations, customer

effort was 40% more accurate than customer satisfaction in predicting loyalty. In fact, our

data finds that 96% of customers with a high-effort service interaction are more disloyal,

compared to only 9% with low-effort interactions.

Ability to Predict Customer Loyalty

R-Squared Compilation

Impact of Customer Effort on NPS

Percentage of Company Detractors

Source: CEB 2012 Customer Loyalty Survey.

Source: CEB 2012 Customer Loyalty Survey.

Through its strong predictability of loyalty, customer effort helps you to identify at-risk

customers who are in the process of or are considering churning out and to proactively reach

out to them. Customers with a high-effort service experience are much more likely to leave

the company and spread negative word-of-mouth. However, service organizations currently

focus proactive outreach primarily on customers who actively complain to the company. This

squeaky wheel strategy only reaches a small fraction of all customers who have high-effort

service interactions. Using customer effort as a risk indicator enables your proactive strategy

to capture all target customers and better mitigate churn.

Effort is also a strong predictor of Net Promoter Score (NPS), one of the most-used metrics

to gauge the overall health of a customer relationship.

Customer

Satisfaction = 1.0xCustomer

Effort = 1.4x

High

Effort = 67%Low

Effort = 4%

vs.

vs.Effort complementscompany-level loyalty

measures, including NPS.


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Customer Effort and Cost Savings

Through our Effortless Experience Dashboard data, weve found that what tends to

increase effort also tends to increase costs. We determine cost to serve by identifying

which service channels customers are using and how many times they must contact within

or across those channels to ultimately resolve a request. We tie that information to our

annually collected benchmark data on cost to serve per contact, collected from contact

centers across companies and industries, to determine total cost to resolve a request.

Cost to Serve by Customer EffortaLevelAverage Cost

T

otalCostto

Resolve

Service

Request

Customer Effort

Low High

$0.00

$15.00

$30.00

$0.00

$15.00

$30.00

n= 145,418 customers.

Source: CEB 2015 Effortless Experience Dashboard.

a Effort comprises ease of handling the issue, if contact is worth the effort, and relative time required.Lower numbers are better.

To elaborate on the above graph, from our dataset of more than 145,000 customer

responses, weve indeed found that higher customer effort throughout the service

interaction is associated with more expensive total cost to resolve service requests. Factors

that cause these higher costs could include: unclear policies, redundant processes, poorly

skilled reps, and limited technology.

Proven Relationship to Business Outcomes

Measuring effort and optimizing to a low-effort experience can improve customer loyalty

(or mitigate customer disloyalty) and lead to major cost savings. Service organizations and

companies interested in mitigating disloyalty and minimizing service costs should focus on

decreasing customer effort as a means to achieve those higher level goals.


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Why Effort? Actionability

Measuring effort positions service organizations to more confidently take action to improve

the customer service experience. Our research across the past decade has been designed to:

Understand customer effort from many angles, and

Arm companies with knowledge and strategies to decrease customer effort.

This actionability element ensures that once the link between customer effort reduction

and/or loyalty and cost-savings goals has been made, we can also support you as you

use effort measurements to identify exactly how you can reduce effort within your ownorganization.

Many seemingly good effort reduction options exist. After you start measuring effort,

your organization may be thinking, What should we do next to reduce customer effort?

To answer this question, we conducted a two-part survey to surface inexpensive and

immediate ways to reduce effort that are also within the control of the service organization.

The first part of the survey asked more than 4,500 customers to gauge the effort required

in a recent service interaction, and part two asked 36 companies about their operations

and processes as they relate to reducing customer effort. The results of this analysis were

surprising to many.

Your current effort reduction initiatives only tackle one-third of the effort equation.

An overwhelming 73% of service organizations focus their effort reduction initiatives on

decreasing what the customer has to exert or do with a company (things like number ofcontacts, transfers, and repeating information), but our customer-facing survey analysis

reveals that these attributes only account for 35% of customer effort.

Customer interpretation of their service experience has the greatest impact on effort.

Customer interpretation refers to how the representative resolves a request and makes the

customer feel about the interaction in the process. In contrast with the do side, customer

interpretation accounts for the feel side. In fact, 65% of effort comes from the customers

interpretation of how the rep made him or her feel. This means that frontline reps have a

huge role to play in reducing customer effort in the service experience.

Given the degree of control that reps have over impacting customer effort, rather than

just focusing on basic soft skills (which have no measurable impact on effort reduction),

leading companies teach their reps experience engineering skillsa strategy that actively

guides customers through an interaction designed to anticipate and preemptively react toemotional responses for mutually beneficial outcomes.

n= 4,589 customers.

Source: CEB 2011 Customer Effort Survey.

Drivers of Customer Effort

65.4%

How the rep

made thecustomer feel

(Feel Side)

34.6%

What

customershave to do

(Do Side)

!

?

Service organizations will surface both do and feel opportunities as they measure

customer effort. Many do this by taking a closer look at the customers who score their

interactions as high effort. Cutting the data by issue type, customer segment, product, or

center can often provide additional color. Other organizations use quality assurance teams

or technology to listen to those higher-effort calls for trends.


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Effort Drivers on the Do Side

Do is still 35% of the effort equation and it does matter, so we must continue to identify

improvements here. Identifying the drivers of customer effort on the do side is relatively

straightforward, and this is why many service organizations that focus on effort reduction

start with this part of effort.

Customer exertion encompasses the number of steps and actions a customer has to take

during the service experience, including wait time, transfers, repeating information,

repeated contacts, and channel switching. By pairing the effort score with these metrics,

service organizations can often identify areas of improvement.

These factors all have different levels of impact on customer effort. For example, when

customers have to contact again to resolve their requests, effort increases by 43%.

Do Factors That Impact Effort Significantly



a Effort comprises ease of handling the issue, if contact is worth the effort, and relative time required.

Lower numbers are better.

Exertion

Factor

Detail EffortaImpact

Repeat

Contacts

Customers who resolved in two contacts

compared to only one

43% increase

in effort

Channel

Switching

Customers starting on the web who

switch to the phone to resolve, relativeto customers starting on the web and

resolving there

30% increase

in effort

Repeating

Information

Customers who must frequently repeat

information relative to everyone else

46% increase

in effort

See p. 8 for more detail on actions you can take to reduce effort

on the do side.

By measuring customer effort alongside these other metrics, service organizations willgain tangible insights into knowing what actions should be taken to reduce the do side of

customer effort.


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Effortless Experience Skills Framework

Source: CEB analysis.

Effortless

Experience

Skills Framework

Interac

tionTailo

ringan

d

ContentSurfacing

Exper

ienc

e

Eng

inee

rin

g

ForwardResolvin

g

Effort Drivers on the Feel Side

While the do is important, the feel makes up the majority of customer effort. Unlike the

do side of effort where many things can be controlled by the company, the feel side of

effort is largely in the hands of your frontline staff. Therefore, it becomes critical to develop

your frontline staff with the right competencies and to hold them accountable for their

behaviors. Our many years of research on rep skills, competencies, and behaviors uncovered

three core competencies that help frontline staff deliver the low-effort service experience,

as described in the Effortless Experience Competency Framework:

Interaction Tailoring and Content SurfacingTailoring the reps communication style

to match the communication style and preferred issue resolution path of the customer

and identifying implicit and explicit customer needs through purposeful, probing

questions

Experience EngineeringInfluencing the customers perception of the experience

through positioning techniques and use of language

Forward ResolvingPreemptively resolving the next likely issue(s) that the customer

may not articulate in the moment but that will cause a repeat call

The feel side of effort iswholly in the hands of your

frontline staff.

Interaction Tailoring

and Content SurfacingExperience Engineering Forward Resolving

Skills include:

Flexing

communication styles

Owning and

advocating

Active listening

Surfacing additional

information

Skills include:

Acknowledging

baggage

Using positive

language

Positioning

alternatively

Skills include:

Recognizing

opportunities

Positioning naturally


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Customer Effortawith Improved Performance of the EffortlessExperience Skills

Average Effort Indexed

Effort Drivers on the Feel Side (Continued)

These competencies have been proven to impact customer effort significantly; by achieving

world-class performance on these skills, companies can decrease perceived customer effort

by almost 75%.

By advancing from averageto world-class performanceon these skills, companies candecrease perceived customer

effort by almost 75%.



a Effort comprises ease of handling the issue, if contact is worth the effort, and relative time required.Lower numbers are better.

See p. 9 for more detail on actions you can take to reduce effort

on the feel side.

Given that frontline reps have full control over reducing customer effort on the feel side,

it is crucial to understand if and how well they are demonstrating the effortless experience

skills. By establishing the effort measurement system and coupling it with quality assurance

call listening or call analytics technologies, service organizations will gain a clear picture of

the overall competency level of the frontline staff and inform next steps.

Action-Oriented Measurement

The goal of using a metric is not to just add it to your dashboard. The true motivation for

measuring anything is to improve it by taking actions. Understanding the effort system

knowing what drives effort and what you can do to reduce customer effortallows you to

take action, giving you the confidence you need to make things happen.

0.00

0.50

1.00

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.00

0.25

Average Performance World-Class Performance


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The do side encompasses the number of steps and actions a customer has to take during the service

experiencein other words, the customer service journey. A low-effort service journey starts with picking

the right channel to contact the company to get an easy and efficient resolution. But if you depend on

customers themselves to figure out the best-fit channel for their issues, you wont be providing a low-effort

journey, as many customers unwittingly don't pick the best-fit channel for their issue.

Our current Effortless Experience Dashboard data, measuring experiences across almost 100 companies,

shows that in the channel customers picked first, regardless of whether it was the phone, website, web chat

or e-mail, more than half of customers did not get their issue resolved in that channel in their first attempt.

These failed first attempts and unwanted exertion factors inevitably lead to high-effort service journeys.

Therefore, managing and guiding customers to the best channel to start their service request is key to

reducing the do side of effort. Given all the new channels and choicesand that most customers don't

chose the right channel the first timeservice organizations must provide better guidance to customers so

that they can quickly and easily reach the best service channel; otherwise effort and cost will likely build up.

Our research and best practices help you develop a multichannel strategy that guides every customer to the

lowest-effort channel and creates an effortless customer journey by working on:

Actions You Can Take to Reduce Effort on the Do Side

Measuring effort allows service organizations to understand which channels customers are exerting the

highest level of effort in, and they can therefore reassess the channel fit for specific issue types. These

insights will help service organizations build an effective multichannel strategy that leads to better self-

service and lower live contact volume.

Where

to Guide

CEB Insight

Not all channels are equal.

Each channel has its own

capabilities and limitations

in resolving particular issues. Companiesare the best

positioned to connect

customers with thelowest-effort channel, with

knowledge of own issue

types and channel features.

CEB Solution

Companies should use

Our Issue-to-Channel

Mapping Toolto audit

available service channels

and determine each

channel's appropriateness

for resolving particular

customer issues and

requests.

How

to Guide

CEB Insight

Appealing to the familiar

construct of a live

conversation increases the

likelihood that customers

will be guided to the

right answer quickly and

efficiently.

CEB Solution

CEB best practice

showcases a low-cost online

pathing toolthat mimics a

live service interaction to

actively guide customers to

the best-fit channel. Guidance Language

Principleshelp companies

better understand known

levers of persuasion and

how they can subtly

influence customer behavior.

When

to Guide

CEB Insight

Guidance should be

timed appropriatelyto

take advantage of critical

opportunities. Critical opportunities

are knownto service

organizations and should beproactively utilized.

CEB Solution

CEB best practices help

service organizations

identify and leverage

service triggersthat

cause a customer to contact

the company and then

guide the customer to a

low-effort channel without

the customer even noticing.
https://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/tools/12/issue-to-channel-mapping-tool.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/tools/12/issue-to-channel-mapping-tool.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/providing-effective-customer-guidance-online.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/providing-effective-customer-guidance-online.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/study/12/ending-the-customer-expectations-race/wording-principles-for-guiding-customers.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/study/12/ending-the-customer-expectations-race/wording-principles-for-guiding-customers.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/identifying-the-right-opportunities-to-guide.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/identifying-the-right-opportunities-to-guide.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/identifying-the-right-opportunities-to-guide.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/identifying-the-right-opportunities-to-guide.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/study/12/ending-the-customer-expectations-race/wording-principles-for-guiding-customers.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/study/12/ending-the-customer-expectations-race/wording-principles-for-guiding-customers.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/providing-effective-customer-guidance-online.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/providing-effective-customer-guidance-online.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/tools/12/issue-to-channel-mapping-tool.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/tools/12/issue-to-channel-mapping-tool.html


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To optimize the feel side, service organizations must focus on developing reps Effortless Experience skills,

enabling them to make customers feel like the interaction is as easy as possible. Our research, best practices,

and talent solutions help you develop a holistic talent strategy that not only teaches reps how to exercise

these skills but also sustains the behaviors through:

Measuring effort allows service organizations to gain a clear picture of the overall competency level of

frontline staff and identify which specific skills require further development, guiding actions toward specific

aspects of the talent management (e.g., hiring, developing) to reduce customer effort.

Actions You Can Take to Reduce Effort on the Feel Side

Hiring

CEB Insight

Personality traits matterwhen it comes to

delivering low-effort service experiences, and

there is a certain profile that exhibits the effortless

experience skills naturally.

CEB Solution

Our research has found the ideal personality type

that service organizations should hire for, and withthem working in the organization, you will find

yourself at a better starting point than most of your

peers.

Measuring

CEB Insight

The traditional, checklist-approach QA no longer

meetsthe current needs for delivering the low-

effort service experience. Successful QA processes are built upon an

evaluation of broad core behaviorsrequired for

low-effort interactions.

CEB Solution

Our QA Competency Frameworkincludes 20

unique competencies that are mapped to the

Effortless Experience Skills Framework, helping

organizations identify the most relevant and

appropriate ones that reps should develop.

Developing

CEB Insight

Coaching is crucial.Good coaching increases rep

performance by up to 12%; bad coaching, however,

degrades performance nearly twice as much as

good coaching helps.

CEB Solution

CEBs talent solutionsbuild reps effortless

experience skills through both on-site and virtuallearning sessions. Through this training, reps quickly

comprehend how to deliver the low-effort service

experience. We also help supervisors deploy high-quality

coaching to reinforce those skills through a rigorous

coaching program.

Enabling

CEB Insight

Fostering an environmentthat embraces rep

judgment allows reps to hone their service skills

and deliver the low-effort service experience. The best judgment-supporting environment is built

through creating strong peer networksthat allow

reps to share successes and failures.

CEB Solution

Ourresearch and best practices help create a

climate where frontline staff connect with their

peers, share best practices, and learn in the

moment from each other.
https://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/study/15/the-portrait-of-the-new-high-performer.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/topics/talent-management/modernizing-quality-assurance/develop-a-flexible-qa-framework.htmlhttp://www.cebglobal.com/exbd/top-insights/effortless-experience/talent/index.pagehttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/topics/talent-management/how-to-develop-staff-skills/create-an-environment-to-enable-rep-performance.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/topics/talent-management/how-to-develop-staff-skills/create-an-environment-to-enable-rep-performance.htmlhttp://www.cebglobal.com/exbd/top-insights/effortless-experience/talent/index.pagehttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/topics/talent-management/modernizing-quality-assurance/develop-a-flexible-qa-framework.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/study/15/the-portrait-of-the-new-high-performer.html


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0.00

1.00

2.00

0.00

1.00

2.00

1.00

1.62

Why Effort? Relatability

As mentioned earlier, by measuring effort, service organizations can identify where to

take action to create an effortless service experience. However, when it comes to taking

action, it is often not just within the service organization where changes must happen.

Service leaders face increasing amounts of collaboration with other business partners to

make service improvements (e.g., working with marketing teams to improve messaging on

websites so customers can better self-serve).

A key element in successful collaboration with other functions is relatability to the goal you

are working toward. The good news is that the idea of effort, as significant as it is to serviceorganizations, also applies to many other parts of the business. In fact, we have already

seen progressive sales organizations and marketing departments striving to make their own

interactions with customers as easy as possible. Therefore, by measuring and improving

something that other business partners also embrace, collaboration across functions will be

easier and more effective.

Progressive Sales Organizations Are Making Purchase

Experiences Easy

Modern customers are armed with more high-quality information and options than

ever before. As much good as this new volume of information can provide, it is making

customers feel helpless and overwhelmed during the purchase process. Simply put, buying

is becoming harder for customers, and it is negatively impacting companies. It should come

as no surprise, then, in our analysis of over 600 B2B purchases, the single biggest thing that

sales organizations could do to increase their likelihood of winning a high-quality purchase

was to make it easy for customers to buy. Progressive sales organizations who make it easy

for customers to buy (high purchase ease) were 62% more likely to close a high-quality sale

Impact of Purchase Easeaon Suppliers Likelihood of Making a High-Quality Saleb

Indexed

To increase their likelihoodof winning a high-quality

purchase, sales organizationshave to make it easy for

customers to buy.

n= 610.

Source: CEB 2015 Sales Customer Panel Survey.

a Purchase ease when a supplier made it easy for the organization to make this purchase.

b High-quality Sale is defined an increase in chance of being selected as a winning supplier, and the customer 1) didnot settle for a less ambitious solution, or 2) purchased a premium offering relative to the base offering.

Note: Customer data controlled for brand, customer service, price/value ratio, and features and benefits.

Low Purchase Ease High Purchase Ease

1.00x

1.62x


11/15



Progressive Marketing Functions Are Making Brand

Experiences Easy

If sales organizations deal with how to compel customers to purchase, marketing functions

then deal with how to make customers continue to purchase by building brand loyalty.

Facing similar challenges, marketing functions also find for many consumers the rising

volume of messages isnt helpingits overwhelming. As a result, many brands are seeing

less purchase intent, less follow-through on intent, and less intent to repurchase.

To improve brand loyalty, leading brands realize that consumers are overwhelmed by all

the choice and information out there. Instead of fighting for more attention, they makechoosing their brand so easy that consumers can actually think less about the decision.

Our analysis shows that the single biggest driver of brand loyalty, by far, is the ease for

consumers to gather trustworthy information and weigh their purchase options, also

known as decision simplicity.

Indeed, brands that score in the top quarter of the Decision Simplicity Index are 85% more

likely than those in the bottom quarter to be purchased by consumers.

Impact of Increased Decision Simplicity on Various StickinessOutcomes

Illustrative


Effort measurement captures customer perspective at the point of the service interaction,

but this effort is often caused by decisions further upstream (a confusing marketing

campaign, for example) that needs to be fixed. You, as the service leader, inevitably need

support from other functions to either fix customer problems or enhance the service

experience. Measuring effort enables you not only to identify actions you should take but

also to better communicate with your internal partners to move things forward.

Additional Guidance

Our research shows that making things easy resonates widely and is a path forward within

business functions beyond customer service. To frame your conversations with business

partners on these findings and to position your requests for working together on effort-

reduction projects, it may help to understand more of where your business partners are

coming from. Understanding the main pain points driving shifts in your peers worlds will

help you better position effort reduction and making the interaction easy as is in your

peers interest. The next two sections provide a deeper look into the pain points that led

our sister research programs to incorporating ease and simplicity into sales and marketing

initiatives.

Decision simplicity is the

single biggest driver ofbrand loyalty.

Follow-Through onPurchase Intent

Repurchase Recommendation

25th Percentile Decision Simplicity

75th Percentile Decision Simplicity

0%

50%

100%

0%

50%

100%

36%

67%

87%95%

33%

71%

Frequency

(Percentage)

See next page for sales organization pain points that making it easy

can address.

See p. 13 for marketing function pain points that making it easy can

address.


12/15



Pain 2: Customer Purchase Regret

Along with prolonged purchase length, customers are more likely to experience purchase regret.Purchase regret drives negative advocacy for the company in the short term and reduces customer

loyalty in the long term.

n= 610.


Overwhelming Purchase Experience

Struggled to identify next steps Group had difficult time making decisions Excessively long

Presence of stall points/delays

Purchase Regret

Purchase failed to meet our expectations Purchased less comprehensive solution than

we should have Ultimately regretted making this purchase

1

3

5

7

1

3

5

7

P

urchase

Regret

Overwhelming Purchase Experience

1 3 5 7

Impact of Overwhelming Purchase Experience on Purchase Regret

Pain 1: Extended Buying Cycle

Overabundance of information and options directly impacts sales cycle length. In fact, the actual

purchase length is 97% longer than the customers expected purchase length.

n= 610.


Actual Purchase Length = 97% Longer

Beginning of Purchase

Customers Expected Purchase Length

Purchase Decision

Customers Actual Purchase Length

Buying Cycle Length, Expected Versus Actual

As Reported by Customers

Customers are armed with more high-quality information and options nowadays. As much good as this

increase in information provides, it also makes customers feel helpless and overwhelmed along the purchase

process. As a result, two pain points that sales functions face are extended buying cycle and customer

purchase regret. You can use these pain points to demonstrate the what's in it for me for the sales leader

and connect his or her work back to effort.

What Are Your Peers in Sales Organizations Struggling With?


13/15



Pain 2: More Switching

Consumers are also more open to trying new brands and retailers56% of consumers say they are more

likely how to try out new stores, retail websites, or bands than they were five years agoleading to more

switching.

Q: Are You More or Less Likely Now to Try Out New Stores, Retail Websites, or BrandsThan you were Five Years Ago?

n= 4,361.


56%

More Likely

6%

Less Likely

38%

Same

Pain 1: Less Brand Intent

Many brands are seeing less purchase intent, less follow-through on intent, and less intent to repurchase.

Technology-enabled shopping trends (e.g., mobile search, social buying, price comparison apps) suggest

that these problems will only get worse.

Q: Did You Have a Specific Brand in Mind When You Went Shopping?

All Purchases

n= 4,361.


31%

Had a Brand in Mind

15%Simply Went Shopping

54%Had a Product

in Mind

As todays consumers are getting more web-savvyand switching cost is much lower, so customers can

pounce on whichever brand or store offers the best dealbrand loyalty is vanishing. In response, companies

have ramped up their messaging, expecting that the more information they provide, the better the chances

are of holding on to these increasingly distracted and disloyal customers. But for many consumers, the

rising volume of marketing messages isnt empoweringits overwhelming. You can use these pain points todemonstrate the what's in it for me for the marketing leader and connect his or her work back to effort.

What Are Your Peers in Marketing Functions Struggling With?


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Key Takeaways and Supporting Information

This white paper was designed to give you a deeper understanding of the relationships and

attributes that make customer effort the top metric to measure in your service organization

As you work to introduce customer effort internally, you can build the business case by

underscoring three key advantages of the metric:

1. Predictive validity

2. Actionability

3. Relatability

To support you as you take the first steps in measuring customer effort and building a low-

effort system within your service organization, weve included the following additional

resources:

Survey questions to use in measurement

Stories of four companies that successfully measured effort and improved their service

experience

Questions to ask yourself as you begin to build the business case for customer effort

The Measurement

Since 2008, we have iterated our measurement of customer effort and continue to search

for the best questions to ask to capture the concept of effort and its relationship to business

outcomes. This exploration led us to develop our Customer Effort Index, consisting of the

below survey questions, equally weighted.

Ease of handling the request (CES 2.0)

The company made it easy for me to handle my request.

Perception that contacting the company was worth the customers effort

Contacting the company about this request was worth my effort.

Feeling the contact reason took less time than the customer expected

It took less time than I expected to handle this request.

Scale: (1Strongly Disagree, 7Strongly Agree)

The one question we most highly recommend and find to most correlate with loyalty is our

CES 2.0 question: The company made it easy for me to handle my request.

To capture feedback on effort from your customers, you have the option to utilize different

or multiple survey vehicles. You could switch out a question or two within a post-

transaction survey to gather immediate data on effort to get a quick pulse of the current

state.

To understand effort more holistically, many of our members already take advantage

of the Effortless Experience Dashboarda robust survey engagement that measures

effort across channels and goes a step further in measuring effort driver performance as

well. Use this strategic survey to isolate high-effort areas and prioritize opportunities for

improvement.
https://www.cebglobal.com/exbd-resources/pdf/top-insights/Effortless-Experience-Dashboard.pdfhttps://www.cebglobal.com/exbd-resources/pdf/top-insights/Effortless-Experience-Dashboard.pdf


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Case Studies

See how American Express and Reliant initiated new effort reduction strategies, among

which measuring effort was key.

By measuring effort throughout the service experience, LoyaltyOnewas able to identify

the best opportunities to more effectively guide customers to best-fit channels and made

improvements that decreased customer effort and achieved cost savings.

After beginning to measure customer effort in its contact center, Kappa Company

recognized an opportunity to evolve its organizational culture in the customers best

interest. By partnering with us on Effortless Experience skill development, the firm wasable to increase performance against contact center goals and metrics and reduce customer

effort in the service experience.

Next Steps

To get you started down the path of effort measurement, ask yourself the following set of

questions, which are appropriate for service leaders beginning this process. Once these

questions have been answered, use the arguments within this white paper to support the

shift to measuring and decreasing customer effort in the service experience.

Who do you need to involve?

Would you need buy-in from other colleagues to survey customers on this new

concept?

Who would be the primary user of the measurement data collected?

Who should you educate on customer effort in order to make changes to the service

experience down the road?

What to measure and how?

Would introducing effort in a post-transaction survey or in a strategic service center

survey be more feasible in the near term?

Which of the effort index questions do you have space to ask, given your chosen

method of surveying?

Are there barriers to measuring effort?

Are there resource constraints on amount or scale of customer surveying, the ability to

analyze data, or IT capabilities?

Which functions would be more likely to resist a shift to customer effort? Which of the

three key advantages would best address their concerns?
https://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/drive-loyalty-by-reducing-customer-effort.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/case_study/15/member-success-story.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/case_study/15/kappa-company--experience-engineering.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/case_study/15/kappa-company--experience-engineering.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/research/case_study/15/member-success-story.htmlhttps://www.executiveboard.com/member/customer-contact/decision_supportcenter/drive-loyalty-by-reducing-customer-effort.html

Building the Business Case for Customer Effort1

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